“Here’s the thing. You had your stab at cooking dinner, and you blew it. I have a poker game in a couple of hours. Which means we’ll have to skip the first course and get straight to the entrée.”

“You scheduled a poker game tonight?” I felt my eyes flaring.

He took another step forward, and I instinctively stepped back. He was cornering me. Trapping me into his cobwebs while I desperately tried to think straight.

“You weren’t planning on spooning in front of When Harry Met Sally, were you, Flower Girl?” he asked, giving me a mocking pout.

I wanted to tell him to go to hell and stay there for the foreseeable future, but just as I opened my mouth, my back crashed against the kitchen island. Kill grabbed me by the waist, hoisted me up, and balanced me over the marble. The cold surface hit the back of my thighs, and I sucked in a breath, waiting for him to kiss me, to touch me, to do something wild and raw and uncontrolled, the way he did at our wedding.

Instead, he produced a small satchel from his back pocket, tearing it open.

I frowned.

“A condom?”

He tsked.

“Lube. As I mentioned before, getting you off is not a part of my job description.”

“I’m not a whore.” I pushed him off.

“Sex worker,” he corrected blandly. “Trust me, no one mistakes you for one. If you were an escort, I’d flip you over and plow into you by now.”

My face flamed. “You’re getting your paid company off?”

“Unfailingly.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s the right thing to do. And because there is absolutely zero chance of my forming any attachment to them or vice versa. It is not too late for IVF, Persephone. Do the right thing and leave the dirty fucks for the mistresses. You’re better than that.”

The way he said that dryly with the satchel of lube still dangling between his fingers made me realize he’d planned this all along.

He lured me in here, kept me waiting while I made dinner, then took out the lube to humiliate me. He angered me like I angered him at his office. Threw me off balance to put me off the idea of having sex with him.

Cillian wanted me to leave here untouched with a promise to try IVF.

I couldn’t help but notice his reason for not wanting to touch me.

I was too good.

Not a mistress.

Not an escort.

A spark of hope ignited in my chest. I was determined to beat him at his own game even though he changed the rules so often he made my head spin.

“Fine.” I shrugged, trying my best to appear calm. “You win.”

He nodded, stepping back from between my thighs. “I know an excellent fertility expert. Dr. Waxman. I’ll see that—”

“No. I meant I’m fine with the lube. Hand it over.” I opened my palm, stretching my arm in his direction. He paused, eyeing me as though this was a test.

When he didn’t make a move, I wiggled my fingers. “Go on.”

“You won’t come,” he hissed.

I rolled my eyes, shimmying my panties down my legs. “Let me tell you a little secret, Kill. We women often don’t.”

“You’re stubborn.”

“So are you,” I answered. “How far are you going to take this thing?”

“A mile further than you will,” he assured me. “I never lose, Flower Girl.”

“There’s a first time for everything.”

“Not with me.”

“I guess only time will tell. Hand me the lube,” I repeated. “Rules are rules, and we had an agreement.”

Reluctantly, he disposed the lube in my hand. I squeezed it on my fingers and slid the cold, wet thing into my channel, sucking in a breath at the sudden intrusion. It felt like an OB-GYN exam, and the fact that secretly—stupidly—I’d been dreaming about this moment for years, of being with Cillian intimately, made me swallow down a lump of tears.

I spread my legs, allowing my dress to hike up my thighs, exposing myself to him. My husband snuck a quick look between my thighs, his throat bobbing. He looked away, color rising on his sharp cheekbones.

This adamant, fearless creature in front of me told me he was incapable of feelings, but he did feel something now—discomfort. Excitement. Dread.

He stepped forward, settling between my legs, still fully clothed. The air crackled between us, and the fine hair on my arms prickled with anticipation.

I leaned back on my forearms, biting the corner of my lip. He pushed his sweatpants down, his eyes transfixed on an invisible spot behind my head. He was determined not to be present when it happened. Refusing to touch or look at me. He released his cock from his underwear. He was painfully hard and engorged, a pearl of cum on his tip.

At least now I knew our problem wasn’t physical attraction.

He angled himself toward my entrance, his wry expression making him look like he was a man on death row, then slid in all the way in one go, filling me to the hilt. His eyes rolled, his gaze drifting to the ceiling as he suppressed a hiss.

I was not only wet—I was soaked. My center hot and inviting. I grabbed his cheeks, slanting his face so he’d look at me. His nostrils flared, his lips pursing into a thin line. He didn’t move inside me. We both knew it felt too good. Too right. We fit perfectly, and I struggled to maintain control when every muscle in my body shook, threatening to surrender to the acute pleasure rolling through me.

I reached behind my back, tugging at the string that kept my crisscross dress fastened, and let it loose. The fabric fell at the front, exposing my heavy breasts.

Cillian’s breath hitched. He looked away again at the wall, pulling out, then driving into me once.

Thrust.

Thrust.

Thrust.

His movements were measured, controlled, designed to hold back. He wasn’t here. Not really.

“Nice kitchen,” I commented, making idle conversation. I refused to allow him to forget I was in the room as he sank into me. As my muscles involuntarily squeezed around his heavy hardness, begging him for more. Tremors danced along my skin. “Did you get it remodeled recently?”

He grunted, squeezing his eyes shut and driving into me again with more force. I let out a moan. I didn’t mean to take pleasure in this, just as I was pretty sure Cillian didn’t mean to hit my G-spot. Regardless, both those things happened, and I felt my thighs quivering around his narrow waist. The hot, pressed-silk of his cock drove me mad, and my mouth watered.

Thrust.

Another whimper escaped me.

“We fit so good,” I purred.

He covered my mouth with his palm, looking pained and disgusted with both of us.

Thrust.

I threw my head back, pressing my eyes shut as I felt my breasts bouncing to the pace of his jerks. I hated that I enjoyed it. Hated that I was going to come apart completely unprompted. But I couldn’t blame myself. Cillian was a fantasy, and having him inside me was enough to ignite my world and detonate it into a different galaxy all by itself.

Thrust.

“Kill.” I licked his palm on my mouth, inserting my tongue between his fingers.

Another exasperated groan from him. He picked up the pace, and I knew he was losing it. Losing the precious control he valued so much. The thing that kept him from taking his own wife to bed. I grabbed one of his hands, putting it on my breast, and clutched the wrist of the hand he still used to shut me up, licking his fingers one by one like the lollipop I had in my mouth earlier today, sucking each of them individually.